The present invention relates generally to encryption systems, and more particularly, to an encryption system that is implemented using the concepts of Chaos theory.
Cryptography is the science of protecting information from eavesdropping and interception. The two principle objectives are secrecy (to prevent unauthorized disclosure) and integrity (to prevent unauthorized modification). A number of products are available to provide this protection, but they tend to be complex and slow, or fast but cryptographically not very robust. The Data Encryption Standard (DES) is one example of a robust algorithm, however its software implementations are slow due to its complexity, and its hardware implementations require complex devices. Proprietary algorithms have also been used, however their strength is not always verifiable since design details are usually not publicly disclosed. In addition, complex algorithms require significant human and computing resources to prove their strength, and even then hidden weaknesses are occasionally discovered at a later time. The present invention overcomes these problems.
The DES and Rivest Shamir Aldeman (RSA) cryptographic systems are the best known and most widely used products available for comparison. The Data Encryption Standard and the present invention perform similar functions and can generally be used in the same applications. The DES is available in either hardware or software versions, allowing flexibility for the application developer. The disadvantage with software versions of the DES is that it algorithm is based on a complex state machine, and state machines do not translate well into software. Computers are much better suited to operations on 8-, 16-, or 32-bit words, and DES requires intensive operations at the individual bit level. One DES implementation that was tested required the execution of about 5,000 high-level software statements, which is unnecessarily high.
The RSA algorithm can likewise be implemented in software or hardware, although hardware is the most common, since its processes rely on complicated mathematics which execute too slowly in software for most applications. In addition to its slow speed, another disadvantage is that while being considered computationally secure today, it may not be in the future. Its strength is based on the computationally difficult problem of factoring large prime numbers. If a more efficient algorithm were to be discovered, its security could be weakened. Since this invention cannot be reduced to such a simple mathematical function, it represents a more robust system. The present invention overcomes the problems associated with the Data Encryption Standard and RSA cryptographic systems.